He was adorable, immediately asking to call his friend Quinn, his cousins and his grandparents. “Hello? Tonight’s the night!” he offered as way of introduction to his 6-year-old cousin, after she picked up the phone. I loved that. It sounded like the first line of a cheesy 1980s song. “Well hello, tonight’s the night! And everything’s going to be alright! …” I can only imagine her confusion on the other end. Who the hell is this? Tonight’s the night for what? (There was a short pause before he finally explained that he lost his first tooth.)

He put his tooth in an envelope labeled “TOOTH FAIRY,” stuck it under his pillow and pledged to fake sleep so he could catch the fairy in the act. I didn’t like hearing that.

Below are some tooth fairy observations. Yours in the comments.

— Before I had kids, I always wondered how more parents don’t get caught during the late-night tooth-for-cash switch. Christmas is already dicey, and you don’t have to put the presents underneath your kid’s sleeping head. With the weight of my son’s head on his pillow, removing the envelope with his baby tooth inside reminded me of that scene in the beginning of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where Indiana Jones tries to switch the gold idol for a bag of sand.

— “No time to argue! Throw me the tooth and I’ll throw you the whip!”

— We took a lot of photos when we realized his tooth was loose, anticipating that we would mourn his full-toothed smile. I recall a similar level of trauma when our oldest son was less than a year old, before his first tooth came in. My wife and I were convinced that we would miss his gummy smile. In both cases we were worrying for nothing. My emotional parenting meltdown was all about my son growing up too fast. I like this look even more than the old one. Kids who look like they just got in a hockey fight = cute.

— My wife and I spent several minutes discussing how much money we should give our son. She swore that $1 was the going rate, but I thought that sounded really low, and suggested $5. Then she reminded me that our son has somewhere around 20 teeth in his mouth, and that we were setting precedent. I did the math and gave him $2. He was more than happy in the morning.

— I’m surprised that Hallmark and other corporate vultures haven’t capitalized on the Tooth Fairy by now. You would think Disney would have jumped all over this, with Tooth Fairy princess pillows and other accessories. The Tooth Fairy and Thanksgiving: The last two holidays barely touched by corporate greed.

— A big part of me doesn’t want to even bring this up, but what do parents do when kids swallow their first tooth? This has been my big fear for the past two weeks. I noticed my son’s tooth sticking pretty much straight out last night while he was eating his turkey burger. I ran to get him a mirror. When I handed it to him, he said “There’s only one problem. You’re too late with that.” I had a moment of fear that he swallowed the little baby tooth, before he showed it to me in his hand.

Insert your own “Youngblood” reference here.

— I used to imagine the Tooth Fairy looking kind of like Cate Blanchett in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, only about two feet tall withthe ability to fly. After that stupid movie, I’m wondering how many kids imagine the tooth fairy looks like The Rock.

— I was also surprised that my nearly 6-year-old son didn’t have more questions about the Tooth Fairy. We live in a fairly scientific household and have never talked about the existence of fairies before. Maybe he’s just humoring us, knowing that the gift flow will dry up if he doesn’t play along. If my parents told me a fairy was going to bring me a car when I was 16, I would have played along with that too.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder of this parenting blog, which admittedly sometimes has nothing to do with parenting. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub. Your questions answered on VYou at www.vyou.com/peterhartlaub.